I wonder if this is simply the ultimate ego trip for a guy whose ego is already the size of Texas? There's no higher office in the land than Prezi and maybe he just likes the idea of all that power. Perceived power or otherwise.

I read an article from his ex-strategist a few months ago where they said that Drumpf never intended to go all the way. But as things progressed, and his success kept snowballing, his ego didn't allow him to pull out of the race.

I wonder if this is simply the ultimate ego trip for a guy whose ego is already the size of Texas? There's no higher office in the land than Prezi and maybe he just likes the idea of all that power. Perceived power or otherwise.

I agree. He's already said that domestic and foreign policy would be looked after by the VP. A clever move, given that his complete lack of foreign policy expertise has been brutally laid bare on several occasions. It also means that the Don can get on with being a media mega-star, whilst his VP does the hard work and gets the blame when things go wrong.

Yep. Politcal yep not. Problem is this isn't a property deal when your wealth and influence will clinch it. Im sure he makes his big deal by virtue of this, but running the US wont cut it. Climate Change take a back seat for four years

One of the more obnoxious and personal cost of this run for Presidency by this idiot for a Kiwi like me is having to read some of the admiring ramblings towards him by people who are on my FB friends list or friends of friends whose ramblings are shared with me. They usually consist of the usual babblings about how he's a brave fighter against political correctness (whatever this oft-used term means) and the usual post-factual ramblings of people who lap up his "Believe Me" line. I guess this is just incentivising me to check FB even less than usual!

fivethirtyeight dot com Now-cast has Trump winning by a handy margin, 55% to 44%. This Now-cast assumes that the election is held today. If you are a real political junkie read the full details about their polling methods. I gave up after the first page or two.

fivethirtyeight dot com Now-cast has Trump winning by a handy margin, 55% to 44%. This Now-cast assumes that the election is held today. If you are a real political junkie read the full details about their polling methods. I gave up after the first page or two.

Some other recent polls have Trump in the lead too.

Just for the sake of completeness their polls method has Clinton at a 53% chance of winning and their polls plus method has Clinton at a 60% chance of winning. The polls method has been reasonably accurate through the primaries.

It is normal gor a candidate to get a bounce after their convention, so it'll be more relative after the Democratic convention. Polling will start to get a bit clearer in the next month once state polling starts more consistently at the state level, which is how the electoral college is decided.

Some good speeches at the Democratic convention. Rev. William Barber was amazing. Straight out of the Blues Brothers. A real old-time, bible-thumping, ferocious fire and brimstone black preacher. He had everyone in the place on their feet and the current Muslim father isn't doing badly either.

An excellent analysis of the successes achieved by the Democrats during their convention and how Trump has fundamentally gutted the GOP. Perhaps in my view it is more accurate to say that the GOP and Dumpf gave each other, well, the other. Whilst I personally have no time of the day for patriotism, I accept that in modern politics (especially in America) you either have to genuinely believe in patriotism or fake it convincingly enough to win, especially if you are on the blue side. This is because traditionally the Republicans and especially their socially conservative wing will endlessly throw out the usual platitudes without ever understanding the values that underlie their constitution or how the underlying values ought to cohere into a defensible conception of a liberal democracy.

I am impressed by how the Democrats managed to profess a love for their country without the preening, obnoxious pining to the past or some imaginary, static perfection that is the usual wet dream of social conservative fantasy. Yes, compromise is a fact of life; caring about black lives isn't anti-police and not being a narcissistic, dishonest (one can't help but notice dishonesty runs in the Trump family -- his wife has pulled her website which claimed her to be a university graduate when she never graduated) ignoramous is worth celebrating. Can the democrats do better next time around in times of implementing a progressive platform? We shall see (I am not too optimistic). But the intellectual destruction of the GOP and their morally bankrupt brand of social conservatism was total.